Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
Over the years, we’ve told stories around our virtual table in the worlds of Tales from the Loop, Pendragon, Mutant Year Zero, Star Trek Adventures, The One Ring, The Electric State, Forbidden Lands, Legend of the Five Rings, and Symbaroum. Going forward, we’re focusing on a smaller lineup of games, giving us more opportunities to return to each story sooner. As campaigns reach their natural conclusions, we’ll add new stories from the worlds of Twilight: 2000, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Walking Dead, and more.
We’re not voice actors, professional entertainers, or trained performers—just friends from around the globe sharing virtual dice, stories, and a laugh or two as the game unfolds.
Stories with Dice
The Cartography of Memory Episode 5: An Actual Play of The Electric State
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What begins as a search for medical supplies at Roger’s old workplace turns into a descent into the Cartography Project—an archive of human memory that may be alive.
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Welcome to the Cartography of Memory, an actual play of the electric state from Stories with Dice. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you'll never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to another session. We left off our intrepid people driving off in Roger's bus to Roger's work after visiting the old forgotten library, and they'd basically had a bit of a wander around this old part of history. They found someone who was in a who was stuck in the neuroscape. They were almost, almost going to leave them behind and let them sort of just die, but it didn't happen. I think they might might be being guilted into actually taking him. And I think you've also taken the woman, haven't you? So I'm joined as always, after a little brief uh update, by Market. Hello. How are you?
SPEAKER_01Doing alright. So we we were off last week for Oh, because your computer died, and you gotta get a new computer. Wow. So well, yeah. So we're all trying to sort of remember where we left off, but all I know is I'm AG88.
SPEAKER_02I'm a drone pilot, and uh I think the cracks are starting to show in him.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I'm excited. Um and uh we are joined by Carmelo. Hello. How's things with you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, things are okay with me, and hopefully uh with Raymond as well. It looks like even though he hates people, he's slowly been getting a little bit of his humanity back by being feeling guilty about everything.
SPEAKER_03Sounds fair. And are we also joined by Douglas?
SPEAKER_00Hello. Yeah, I'm fine. I think this week Roger's going to be having a not great time, though. I don't know what you mean. Well, you know, it's always it's always a bit awkward when you go back to your old workplace and see all the people there, and you're like, hi, how you been? This is true. Well, this this time they might be corpses, so you know, it might be it might be a little interesting for you. Could be a little bit easier.
SPEAKER_03I mean, so I'll be doing better than them then. It's a baseline, right? You're alive, that's your baseline. Everything's doing well, everything's going well. Right, so I guess we'll kind of like get on in. So you you decided to that this that your your work is actually not too far out of the way. And it has medical bays and it has labs, which you have used in the past. So that's where you're heading. So the uh the road that you're journeying on is continuing north, and you continue off of the main highway, or the main sort of like main road, and you start taking some turnings to take you to the labs. Shiver Labs is in the mountains below the so in the center part of Pacifica. There's a whole bunch of lakes and reservoirs, and there's some mountainous or sort of at least some some hilly area around that into the south of it. So the land that you were going through was quite dry and arid, but it's starting to get a little bit more green. There's more thickets, more bushes, because it's on the in the in the in the in the mountain on the mountain in the hills, it does get quite a little bit of rain, so things are starting to seem fresher, greener, which is quite nice. It kind of lifts your spirits just briefly. And you continue driving your um short bus towards your labs. Now, how long ago that you uh have been to the labs?
SPEAKER_00I don't know how long everything is relative because all our all our all our stories are kind of tied together. So I would say it's been a multiple multiple years, if not like five plus. Well, I don't no hold on. Yeah, it probably would be five plus. I don't know if you want us to be specific or not. No, no, no, no, you don't have to be specific at all.
SPEAKER_03And we know that you left for unknown reasons, or at least no one knows why why you left, and you haven't been back for a while. So it's a bit of a strange feeling having to drive back to work after this time. As you sort of make your way towards the outskirts of the labs, you remember the drive. It's sort of like down these winding roads which go through sort of metre and a half, two-meter tall trees, quite thorny, sort of brackish trees interspersed with rocks and streams, and you remember sort of the the final stretch of this drive. The final stretch of the drive is sort of it it flattens out a little bit and heads towards a couple of hills. You see the lab's exterior fencing. You can see the little guard shack that would normally sit on the outside of the of the facility. It's not manned, and the facility's fence is down on the ground. Um, it doesn't appear that uh anyone's used that fence for a while.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Is like the sort of like barrier at the gatehouse sort of like closed or open? There's that in yeah, the the the barrier would have been the fence itself, the fence gate. Oh, like it's part of the fence. Yeah, so it's all nothing.
SPEAKER_03The fence gate's down straight. Yes, you could drive straight over the fence gate. That's on the on the road. And you turn to to the right as you kind of make your way into the the buildings. There's a loose collection of brown buildings which kind of like sit just on the um on the uh by a large sort of car park, and you make your way towards it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Is there any cars in the car park?
SPEAKER_03No. As you get towards the the building, you can see that they are completely devastated. It is gutted, all the brown buildings, it was a sort of like three or four-story structure, and there are multiple of them, have basically been demolished. Everything is broken. There is brickwork on the floor, there's shells of windows, there's um the windows all being broken. It looks like a skeleton in some of the um in some of the actual buildings. It is not being used for a while. Um everything is very broken. You have to sort of like navigate through the car park on the broken bits of concrete and brickwork. The glass that would have adorned the front of the uh building has long since shattered and gone and has basically strewn around the um the front of the actual entranceway of the facility. In fact, in some places the walls are missing completely. Okay. It looks like a bomb has gone off here.
SPEAKER_00And it might well have done. Is it still like recognizable as the sort of like place I used to know? Absolutely. Can I vaguely remember if there was like a first aid station or somewhere in this place?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there were some labs sort of on the underground. But there are sort of like levels underground. The the top level was all the sort of official admin and all the other stuff. But there are there are two or three levels underground.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And that's where the first aid points were. Yeah, that's where the like upstairs there might just be a first aid kit or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Little doctors' offices were downstairs. Yeah, all that kind of stuff was downstairs. All the labs were downstairs. Okay. Um I guess they'll pull up near what's left of the front entrance. I assume, like the main entrance. Yep.
SPEAKER_03You you you do that. You kind of pull up the the wheels on the on the bus, they break and crack over cement and brick. And there's all manner of things. As soon as you open the doors, you can see printers or was letter printers and screens and just all the stuff that should be on the inside of the building, on the outside of the building. It's all smashed and broken. Um you can see, you can see parts of the building are scorched. Something bad has happened here.
SPEAKER_00I'll park well to park the bus. I'll just sort of like get off the bus. And then just sort of like stand there in front of in front of the entrance and just sort of like take it all in. And just try and get us get an idea of like what I'm exactly I'm looking at. Like sure.
SPEAKER_01While you're doing that, what are the rest of you doing? So IG88 turns to Raymond and in a childlike voice says, Did I did I do something wrong? I I feel like I feel like I did something bad at the museum? Was I was I bad, Raymond? And he points at the people that are that we've brought along.
SPEAKER_03You look at Jell. And uh it was the the the woman that that you met there and the uh guy you rescued from the vault who is catatonic and near death.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so remember Raymond wanted I mean not Raymond, sorry. IG88 wanted to leave them behind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well he he put a woman in the coma anyway. I think he put yes, that's right, he put a woman ripping off the headset. Yeah. Yeah, IG, they just needed a bit some help. We couldn't leave them behind. You wanted to, but I couldn't. And that's the difference between us. Was that bad? Yeah, kinda. Well hopefully we can find some help for them here. What's Roger doing? What's he doing out there anyway?
SPEAKER_01Well, he's just looking around. Like it looks like somebody really hated their job. They trashed the place. I don't even know why we're here. We're supposed to be on our way to Roger's to Roger's cabin. Why are we why are we wasting our time?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna poke my head outside the bus and and ask him what's what's going on, why is he standing around? Hmm? Roger just kind of like snaps back into sort of reality when you mention his name and just turns back and he's just gives sort of like points uh the people on the bus that are lying down, like in their general stayer, and then does sort of like cross arms and it's and then points inside. Well then why is why are we standing here waiting around then? Let's get inside. Um he's pointing to a shell of a building.
SPEAKER_03That's all broken down, brickwork everywhere, there's no windows in it, the roof is missing.
SPEAKER_00But is there are there's do you think there's still be uh help inside for them? He he nods and then does a sort of like flat with two arms, and then does a gesture of underneath. So we have to go underground, is that what you're saying? Thumbs up. Okay, yeah. In which case I'm gonna come with you. Maybe we should leave uh IG uh here to watch these others. No can do. Paul and Tiffany say we can stay with them, it's fine. Okay, fine. Alright, IG, if you wanna come along?
SPEAKER_01Shall we go, Roger? Thumbs up. And then you hear IG-88, he's playing a clip from the Undiscovered Country. He's gonna switch it up a little bit, no more Star Wars. And it's Spock saying, Jim, they're dying. And then Captain Kirk saying, Let them die.
SPEAKER_00No no, IG-88. I'm not a people-loving person myself, but even you know, I have a little bit of a heart. We can't just leave these people to die. Okay, so you're coming along, then come along to help. Coming along to be sarcastic, and maybe want to leave that in the bus. I'm coming along to make sure Roger doesn't get into trouble. Now that is a good idea. Lead the way, Roger. Okay. I will brack my memory for the route to like the inner bit and then start walking.
SPEAKER_03You make your way into the building and to where the elevator shaft would be. It's still there. You have to sort of clear some of the debris out of the way. And next to the um the lift shaft is a set of stairs. You can go down the stairs. Okay. The d the the door that would lead to the stairs is cracked slightly open, so you don't need a keycard or anything else that you would normally use. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can make your way down the stairs.
SPEAKER_00Do I vaguely remember how far down it was to the first level?
SPEAKER_03It's yeah, it's not far. It's um it's literally three flights of stairs down to the first level. Um you make your way in, it's dark apart from a flickering light. There's some emergency lighting that's on, but it looks like it's on the way out. It flickers maybe for three or four seconds off, maybe one and a half seconds on, and it continues to do that. And it's sort of like a soft orange light as it flickers down the stairs. Yeah. You follow the stairs down, and you open the door, which leads you into the hallways that you used to work in. Down here, there are cracks in the ceiling, there's a little bit of water damage here and there, but actually, it looks relatively unscathed. As you sort of make your way into the hallway, you see someone coming towards you. It is a doctor you used to work with, a Dr. Nin. She used to be sort of like an interim senior doctor who came from other from another site. And as she walks towards you, the lights sort of flick on as she kind of comes down the corridor. You can see the sort of like soft dirt and dust coalescing around the light that she's walking down and through. And as she gets closer, you realize that the bits of dirt and dust are actually floating through her. This is a holographic image of Dr. Nell.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Do I remember there being holograms when I was here eastward here? No. Does it seem to acknowledge our presence or just kind of keep it? Yeah, she walks towards you and she says, Hello, Roger. I waifello. Raymond. 88?
SPEAKER_01Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. How do you know our names? We know your name. We know all your names. Well, yes, that's obvious. I said how, lady.
SPEAKER_03She says we know all of the bones that we call for.
SPEAKER_00Call for? What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_03Uh surely you've heard it?
SPEAKER_00The static? The pulse? Yes.
SPEAKER_03What does it mean? It's memory. It's digital memory. And you have your own. You should listen to it. You should join us.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.
SPEAKER_02No, thank you, lady.
SPEAKER_03She looks at you impassively as if she has no understanding of what you're saying around around that. She doesn't get any reference.
SPEAKER_00Join you in what capacity? As a complete digital entity? Well, as being part of us, the whole. Like a collective? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, like the Borg from Star Trek The Next Generation.
SPEAKER_03She looks cheap blanket.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, well, we know how that ended. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The Battle of Wolf 359. And I have I have no intention of being the cutist. She's she's a ham. So obviously, does it look like she's being projected? Because I ha I saw some projectors at the previous place, but I didn't quite understand what those were for.
SPEAKER_03No. She looks like she's being projected from the ceiling. So where the lights are, where the where the where the ceiling goes, somehow there's some kind of projector in there.
SPEAKER_00There's no like visible projector that is on. Like if I look up, there is a light source.
SPEAKER_03There is there is there is a light source, yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I point up at the light. Interesting. That wasn't there when I used to work here, I assume that strip.
SPEAKER_03It wasn't there, but it was something that they were working on.
SPEAKER_00Hey Rogers, this place is really creepy. I can understand why somebody blew it up. Well it'd be great if somebody finished the job, I suppose. This is creeping me out. Right, lady, are you if you knew we were coming, if you know our names, you must be connected to a wider grid?
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay, now that's just freaky. The echo. The ectopulse. So you're watching us from anywhere within Pacifica? We all do. How many of there are you? Multitudes. How do you measure that? Thousands, millions.
SPEAKER_03I mean every every memory h has something. And in every memory there is a being perhaps it's difficult to explain to you.
SPEAKER_00How are they all downloaded and digitized?
SPEAKER_03Well, at some point you've all been on the near escape, and you all wish to relive your memories.
SPEAKER_01No, I don't. No, I don't, hologram lady. I do not want to do that. Well, it's already decided. No, no, no, I didn't decide it was anything of the sort, hologram. Sure you did. You just don't know that. Roger, you knew this lady?
SPEAKER_00P nods. Was she this much of a jerk in the real world? I I didn't really know her that well, so I guess he kind of just shrugs. So you wouldn't mind if I did this? Pew pew! You're gonna uh fire at the uh The projector, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah. You shoot with your weapon. Yep. It's a very loud rapport which goes tracks through the uh the corridor. It's really painful for everyone listening. Fuck Yeah, you take out a couple of the projectors. She flickers off.
SPEAKER_01Now boring conversation anyway. The Han solo voice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh shades of Vija there, digital patterns. I didn't know who did people consent to this. I didn't consent to anything. Neither did I. They had just took our memories when we were in the in the skate. Hmm. Now, Roger's just kind of standing there in thought because he is having he is remembering the incident at the petrol station recently, and other times before that were the weird coincidences. So this isn't like hugely surprising for him. It's more just sort of like confirmation of his own bias. As long as you have a good confirmation bias. As in he thought there was something watching him in the fishy going on. Yeah. So this is more just like, okay. I was right, obviously, to be wary of this, but who knows what actually wants. But he's just gonna be he's just gonna start walking off down the corridor towards where that medical facility was. The doctor's room. Uh G88 will follow him. Yeah, we'll file follow. Okay. Bringing up the rear.
SPEAKER_03So you follow Roger down the corridor and you turn to the left and you go past some labs. The labs have got windows in the front. You can see sitting in some of the labs, they're sort of like small cubicles, you can see bodies connected to the neuroscape through their headwear. You can see that there are large data processing stacks which are all sort of blinky. You can see that as you keep walking towards the sort of like medical facilities, there are sort of like screens on the walls. And as you walk past the screens on the walls, it's showing people laying down, like a representation of people laying down onto a bench and onto a table. And the camera zooms in to their head, and you can see a scalpel, like a or at least a fake scalpel, cut into the representation of someone's head, and then it is replaced with parts. Then the skull is put back on, and then the part is placed in what looks like a repository, and then it turns into digital information and goes to a hub. And it just puts it on staying on on leak. It's as if it's like a reminder of what they do here, and every now and then it has the shiver logo, which is like a couple of S's which kind of flip over themselves, and that's what you that's what you see on this logo. And underneath it, it calls itself the cartography project.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I guess when I see that screen, like I'll keep walking past it until I see specifically that bit at the end, and then I'll sort of like just suddenly stop and then just like start staring at the screen. Yep. Um, it does the same thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it does it again and just kind of like puts it on a loop. It does maybe two or three loops, then probably no more than two minutes each. And you did that, kind of like visual representation, it's not real people, it's like animatronic, or not animatronic, but like CG, sort of like people, in very basic form, showing how the project is working and what it's doing, and then it begins again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Broder just seems sort of like once again, sort of like drawn to this thing, and he's just kind of staring at the screen all of a sudden. What is this place? I don't know, man, but it's creeping me out.
SPEAKER_01And is there a way that That IG88 can like figure out what they're doing here?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Why don't you make a roll for me? Make a wit roll. And in fact, I would even go as far as to say that I'll give you a bonus from hacker. I have a success. That's fine. You kind of look at it, it looks like what they're doing is they are removing a part of the brain and replacing it with essentially cyberware, some kind of digital upload or hardware into the into the user's brain. It looks like they're then taking like a representation of memory by the sort of like pizza slice that they've taken out of the brain, and they are uploading it into a digital format and then putting it on a main repository. And it looks like they are essentially building a database of people's memories. And is that harmful to the people they're extracting the memories from? Potentially. I mean, you don't really you don't know enough about the scientific method about whether or not taking a slice of a person's brain will be harmful to them. Well I imagine it probably is. They do appear to be replacing it with some kind of hardware to replace the bit they've taken, but it's you don't know the ins and outs of that far. You kind of have heard about this while you were sort of on the neuroscapes and on the bulletin boards, and you have heard that there are some companies trying to find a way to harness people's memories, the ability to be quick thinking, and to sort of build that into some kind of supercomputer. Also, as a side as a sideline, if they can potentially build some kind of system that automatically works with the human brain, you will not need a neurocaster to access the neuroscapes. You can just do it from yourself. You just need to plug yourselves in, as it were. They're making Borg. I suppose you can call it that. Yeah, that's your reference to it, then that would make sense.
SPEAKER_00Roger will suddenly sort of snap out of it and then start walking down the corridor. Ed, I'm going to go and try and find my old lab.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Cool. Come on. Or sorry, Raymond. What's Raymond doing?
SPEAKER_00Raymond, I think, is going to uh follow Roger down. I don't think we should lose sight of each other.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um, so yeah, you follow yourself down, you go to the next sort of uh stairs down to your down to your lab or your office. So you kind of cut out the sort of medical bay and you kind of go down. Um it's only one floor, the lights are soft as they were before, and you make your way to your your lab. As you do that, you realize that you have have gone down into the lab and you can go to where your lab is. As you're gonna enter your lab, you can see a table. On the table is a large glowing sphere. All your lab and all your other stuff is behind it, but your lab has changed significantly since you were last here. It was very simplistic before, you know, it was the starting of the project. And so things have obviously escalated since then. Uh, you can see a large amoeba-shaped hologram sort of over a central table. All the kind of labs around it are sort of like workstations, that kind of thing. This thing is like moving and it's it's pulsing with this faint blue light. Inside it, you can see lines of digital code flying around. Um, and it's huge. It's probably, you know, eight foot by six foot, and it's just hovering in the center of the lab.
SPEAKER_00Okay. On the way into the lab, was there any names on like the of like the researchers who were working in this lab? Dr. Nim.
unknownDr.
SPEAKER_00Nim is on uh uh Nim's office, is what it's called. Uh, so Nim got moved or upgraded or downgraded, depending on and it it it's it's a different project name now than it used to be. Or is it still the original project name? It's still the original project name. Which I believe is is it the emotional cartography project? Correct. So I guess I'll I'll walk into the room and then kind of like go to like where my space in the lab used to be. Yep. Um then just try and figure out like, okay, I vaguely remember this being my space. It doesn't quite look the same. And you'll just kind of like be standing there at like the sort of like desk almost, but then just kind of like looking a bit confused.
SPEAKER_03Just you kind of remember when you were sort of like heading up the uh the team, yeah. Uh and you were sort of starting to to run it and and and in its infancy you started to kind of like theorize as to what it was going to be like. But this was nothing that you can prepare yourself to to look at. It's definitely been remapped, it's changed. You kind of think back to the sort of you know, you probably had about 20 or 30 people that work with with you and for you, but you can sort of look around. You can't see anybody's names that you recognize. Can I see anything that I recognise in this project? You can. You can you can you can see sort of like the basis of the project, but clearly they've been working on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03For more than that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I will I will gravitate to the things that I recognise, yeah. Then kind of like start just silently just sort of looking at all this stuff.
SPEAKER_03And just like Okay, as you start doing that, Dr. Nim appears at your side, just kind of flickers in, and she's standing there looking down at whatever you're looking at. You try to look at you trying to turn on some computers, you're kind of like looking at any kind of paperwork that's around and I will ignore her unless she like directly interacts with me. I will just be like so focused on that. She's just standing there in a lab coat looking down. IG88 and Raymond.
SPEAKER_01IG88 says, This would be a a really great origin story for the Borg and the Borg Queen. But I want no part of it. So uh Roger, can you hurry up and get whatever it is you need for those people that we really should have left alone back in the museum so we can get the hell out of you?
SPEAKER_00He's ignoring you. Of course he is. He's just furiously like looking at bits of paper.
SPEAKER_03So you find you find some of the information that you you were looking at you started with, looking at an interface to map, you know, people neural memories. The original purpose to cartographise trauma, use it to remap states emotionally, with the intention to rewrite societal memory and to kind of help those who have been affected by multiple things. But clearly what they've done is they've they it's changed. It's definitely gone from that. As you're sort of looking through it, you can see archives and there's sort of like a timeline, which you know you can sit down and you can read, but it'll take a bit of time. It's gonna take you a whole sort of like shift to do that. It's quite complex, and there's a lot of stuff going on there. Cormillo, what's uh what's Raymond doing?
SPEAKER_00Well, Raymond is trying to get a good look at some of the other stations around to see if there's anything there that uh can give it a give him more of a hint as to what's going on here. Can I G-88 sort of hook into the system and and get any information? I forget. Ed, is it it's X?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_03You can't you you can't do anything local. You have to you have to use ADS. Right.
SPEAKER_00Local, I can't do local things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. Okay. Okay. So I mean you can, Brandon. I could put my helmet on, couldn't I?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Sure. I think your bliss and your health are dangerous. Or is it your home?
SPEAKER_00So your hope and hope and bliss are at a dangerous level for you. Yeah, I I think yeah, I think I'm going to, yeah, I'm not not feeling very well to do that at at the moment. I'd like to ask. Yeah. Well, am I seeing anything recognizable on any of these stations?
SPEAKER_03So what did you do, Raymond, and and any past lives? What was your what was your careers? Would would would was what you did in the past be able to help you with things that is sitting here?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm not a novice with technology, uh, even though it's not, you know, my job or anything. Just trying to figure out the purpose and point of of of creating this entire system of draining people's memories. If there's always paperwork around. So PI's pretty good at probably sifting through paperwork. Yeah, but I'm gonna sift through some paperwork around here and see if there's anything worth collecting and taking back to read.
SPEAKER_03Well, why don't you make a witroll? What's your talent? I'm just standing alone. I can't see a talent there for some reason. Seems to be missing.
SPEAKER_01Hold on, I have I have his character sheet. Hold on, let me pull it up.
SPEAKER_03Alright, I'm just having a look at the investigator. So investigator had talents. Data miner, scout, and sleuth. Do you remember which one it was?
SPEAKER_00I think it was sleuth.
SPEAKER_01Uh it was. It was sleuth. Yep.
unknownExcellent.
SPEAKER_01That gives you a plus two to wits when you're searching for clues. Well, seems appropriate. I think that seems very appropriate.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so just roll it as it is. Don't have to change anything on here, do I?
SPEAKER_03So your wits will be five. So you need five dice. And then your talent will give you an extra plus two.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. So so I'll just roll and we add the plus two? Did you see the dice? I didn't see it. I did. You still need to roll another two dice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have one success so far.
SPEAKER_03So yes, you start looking around the stations to see what's there that kind of piques your interest. You know, what's gonna be there. The thing you notice a lot is that it looks like that whoever was down here didn't leave in a hurry. So it wasn't just like something happened and everyone ran away. It's not that. Things have been tidied up, things are either either everyone is amazing at keeping everything where it should be, but there is nothing personal, there is nothing that says, I've been here, this is my workstation, there's a there's no cup that says world's greatest dad, you know, there's nothing like that. It is purely kept tidy, and there's just nothing like that. There's no there's no small personal bits, which is the first thing that strikes you as odd. And there's nothing laying out. So no one's left a pen laying down, no one has sort of like left a sheaf of paper just off to the side, no one has, you know, put a little bobble-headed robot on their desk. There's nothing like that. Which just if you're working here and this is your station, it just isn't, you know. Just wouldn't be a thing. It's very kind of clinical. But it's not a clinical office, so it's not sort of like a clean room or anything like that. So it it is out of place, you would expect. With the the 10 or 12 stations that are here, there would be something showing someone's humanity and there, isn't it? The other thing is that that kind of captures catches your eye is that any of the sort of documents are in drawers, and there are not a lot of keyboards out for working with any of the computers. The computers are there, and in front of you there are, you know, computer screens, but there's just not a lot of things. Which would would you imagine if you were in the near escape, you wouldn't need a computer, but you would always have a redundancy and a backup, and then usually one just like kicking around, but there isn't anything like that either.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna turn to Roger for a minute. Hey Roger. He just ignores you. He just keeps on like it's almost like he's not in the room anymore. He's it's like he's he's working on something. And that and the hologram is just sort of assisting him almost.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Okay, then I'm gonna shoot the projectors for that fucking hologram. I think it's doing something to Roger.
SPEAKER_03Okay. You uh you shoot- Pow pow. You you take a couple shots at the projector. Yeah, the the the projector gets hit. The whole blue thing just starts to sort of coesscellate, then it disappears. But then it comes on, it just flickers and comes back on again. Another projector comes on, showing it. Dr. Nym disappears.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Roger just kind of snaps out of it and just like turns shocked towards IG-88. She was doing something to you, man. He just kind of looks at you confused. Roger, have you noticed anything weird around here? Like, there doesn't seem to be anything personal anywhere. Now, did any of your colleagues bring things in that were personal to them? Because this is all too neat and tidy. Here's the thing. Has has Roger ever mentioned about him working here? Daddy one? No, because I don't think he has. He has not. I'm assuming he has not. So you guys don't know that Roger was. So I I came here and whatnot. I look like I know what I'm doing. Yeah. But okay, so you don't know anything personal about this room. That's fine. Just wanted to establish that. He just kind of looks looks a bit confused and then sort of like looks in there around and then sort of like takes that fact in because I assume when he was here there were everyone had little bits and bobs on their little desks and football families.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you had a 30-odd strong team that were doing all the sort of like grump work of starting things up and the programmers and the hardware technicians and the software technicians, and just everyone was putting in to need the thing they did.
SPEAKER_00He just kind of like you see him looking around, and then obviously looking at like going to like spots where he remembered maybe something. Yeah. Yeah. And that he's he's looking for things and not finding them, and then eventually he just kind of like turns back to you and shrugs.
SPEAKER_03It's really disconcerting for you. In fact, it's you've got like a bit of like a headache kind of coming.
SPEAKER_00He rubbing his sort of temple, and then he kind of he goes to have a look at the thing in the middle. Because everything kind of pointed to this thing, but he doesn't quite get what that is. Would you like to like to know what that thing is, Roger?
SPEAKER_03I would like to, yes. How would you like to make a a wit'll roll, please?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. I don't have any talents or anything relevant to this. So this will be me trying to think my way through the haze. Let's see what happens. One success on three days.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. Yeah, you you you think, and as you start to think, the headache starts to get just that little bit worse, and then it eases. As it eases between sort of the headache getting worse and it's starting to ease, you project yourself into the neuroscape with the piece of cyberware that is implanted in your head. Assume in the real world I just kind of go a bit blind. You kind of call that, you know, you know, you kind of like hold your head, you kind of like do that kind of thing when you're trying to get rid of a headache, and that's what you stop doing. That's what you're doing, just rubbing your temple. Okay. I guess I will freak out a bit. Yeah, you freak out, you're sort of like still in the same lab, but everything is blue, and there's this large blue ball that you're standing in, which is a representation of what you can see in the physical world, and there are loads of there's loads of data flowing around you. If you want any of the data, you want understanding of the data, you just have to st reach your hand up and grab whatever it is that you want.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I will spend a minute freaking out and then eventually like calm myself because I haven't been in Neuroscape for quite a while, and I have huge anxiety about the Neuroscape for reasons. Well, actually, I don't know. I've always just I just always have this weird feeling about the Neuroscape. Can't quite ping my finger at it. But it this is all sort of like once again clicking back into that, and then I'll be like, right, I want to know what this thing is, so I will grab that thing. Yep, you grab that thing. What is it you're trying to grab? Whatever I my mind says is, ah, that'll be what's to do with that middle thing on the table. Whatever bit of data. Dr. Nim appears in front of you and says, Yes, watcher. Ah, Nim. Good to see you. How's the project been progressing since last time we've been here? It's good, sir.
SPEAKER_03It has it's progressed more than we ever thought possible. We haven't seen you here for a while.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I've I've I've and he just sort of like stops. And then sort of snaps back. And he's like, Yes, I believe the sort of focus has changed by the looks of it. These don't quite look like the original goals of the project.
SPEAKER_03No, we started to uh to do as as you instructed. The more we were taking the memories to upload to the central repository, the more the repository started to gain a consciousness. And it started to seek out through I think we called it the pulse, it started to seek out other memories. And I'm afraid to have to say that I am a sad replica of myself. Once the once the being got out, it destroyed the labs. Yeah. It has it has managed to ride the digital highway outside of the labs. It's now loose on Pacifica and the world. I think it's trying to reconnect with others. I think it's trying to I think it's trying to grow. It's trying to evolve.
SPEAKER_00The the headache is now slowly building up and building up in his head. As if like, we're touching on something which is not good. And he's like, but what about the those security measures that Dr. Travers recommended and that sort of thing? Sh did they do nothing to prevent this? No, no.
SPEAKER_03Once we'd uploaded them all, we uh uploaded everyone's memories. As one that was here. So everything that they knew, it knew. The pulse could just simply bypass it. Oh dear dear. And I think now it's it's looking it's looking for you. In fact, I think now that it knows that you are here, and others that it shares his consciousness with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's of that sort of mention, there will be like he will have like the pain in his head will now be like unbearable and his f fight and flight sort of just goes into overdrive.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So IG-88, Raymond, you see you see Roger suddenly turn around and run, but he runs straight into the table. He goes over the edge of the table and falls to the floor. He doesn't get back up.
SPEAKER_02Roger Roger just fell.
SPEAKER_03Roger literally turns, he's just holding his head, he turns and runs directly into the table that's behind him at full force, flips over the table and lands with a crunch on the floor and is unresponsive.
SPEAKER_00I run over to try and take a look at him and see if he's okay. Is he breathing? He is breathing.
SPEAKER_03He sort of like flosses his eyes open and ducks a cheek.
SPEAKER_00Roger, what the hell happened? Are you alright? Am I back in my the real world? You are. I will I will instantly like just roll over, get up, and then just take off running out the door, and I'm just gone. Okay. Can I chase after him? Absolutely. I'm gonna try and grab what I can grab that I think might be important and then run. Okay.
SPEAKER_03You also run out the door grabbing whatever you think might be important. Uh you grab sort of like some some some chips, some like memory chips and some data discs, um, and maybe some like a hand for paperwork or something like that, and you shove it in your pocket as you you give chase. Okay. So, Roger, you run out and you just head in a particular direction or are you just running?
SPEAKER_00No, raw like in a prime full panic. Yep. Because I know I've their thing is after me. You know, it's yeah, it's right behind me. It's like the walls are closing in, and that's sort of just running for like I'm like there has to be a way out. Where is the way out?
SPEAKER_03Run to the like tripping over things and whatnot. Yeah, you kind of like rush into sort of like walls, you know, like kind of like running around a wall, but you use your arm to sort of like stop yourself and carry on running. You know there's uh there's multiple ways that you can get out of here. Um, and so you run towards the car park, because it's probably gonna be the easiest way out. And so you rush out into the through a door into the car park. And you rush out into this large void. It's full of walkways. There's you have to stop for just a brief second, and you realize that the archive is far bigger than you thought it would be, and and you realize that this is actually the the archive that they've been working on for many years. It's huge. They must have millions and millions of memories, and you can just see a whole bunch of walkways, gantries, all going to various data points where they're storing things. It's a hive of activity. There are lots and lots of small robots here, very much a bit almost about the same size as IG-88, and they've got little they're on tracks. Some of them have got sort of mag maglev boots or something, which kind of like allow them to move up and down, moving things around. They're just really busy. There's just loads of them. And you sort of like take that in for just a second, you're realizing that the the car park is very changed to what you remember it being. Uh meanwhile, IG-88 and Raymond are sort of like following in to this fast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, once I once IG-88 gets to these walkways and with this huge machine that's collecting all these memories, and he sees one of those little robots, he's he turns to one and in C3Pio's voice he says, Hello, I'm C3PO, human cyborg relations, and you are?
SPEAKER_03A little robot looks at you and makes some bleeping noises, and some servers kind of like start moving, but then it just carries on because that's what it's doing. I kick it, you bucket of bolts, you kick it, it kind of goes, kind of restabilizes and gyro gyrostabilizes itself and then goes off the way it was doing. But as you do that, on the other side of the walkway, probably about 20 meters away, you can see a security robot. And the security robot is now turning and heading in your direction.